There was a time – spanning  spanning across years – that I didn’t like my name. I found its syllables and sounds plucked petal by petal, then stuffed with dirt and rogue blades of grass. The vague methods of mangling used were unique as the fingerprints who came to touch it: colored with foreign accents in its grooves and led by my self-loathing hand. It turned contorted, ugly, unrecognizable, and green – near nauseating to hold. I looked at it the way I imagine pupils at Plato’s academy did at the living featherless chicken squeezed between Diogenes’ hands. Prior to the display, there was a major discussion between philosophers on how a human can be defined. The consensus ended up being that a human was a featherless biped– a creature who can walk on two legs. Bi – ped. There’s no more to us other than body and the number of legs we choose to use – which, for better or for worse, makes those in wheelchairs some sort of otherworldly cyborg.

“Behold, a man!” Diogenes yelled, raising the bird above his head. His fingers calloused, muddied with blood, sandpaper on its thin skin.

Despite being a humanities student in high school, this wasn’t mentioned in any of the philosophy classes I took. We learned about Aristotle and Descartes in summarized chapters cited by Wikipedia so that it would leave ample time in the second half of the school year to focus on “better than” thinkers. The likes of Avicenna, philosopher and physician, who had writings regarding just about everything. The bottom line of all our classes, though, was always the same. As all roads lead to Rome, every lesson, regardless of its contents, leads to God. This was especially true about our literature class. Persian poems from centuries ago, despite their age, are (knock on wood) surprisingly flexible. Metaphors for all that is “sinful” – sex and alcohol just to name a few – all revert back to his holiness and the way he has created the most wonderful paradox: his imperfect divine beings.

The “better than” thinkers we learned about after Avicenna were even more impressive. There’s nothing more awe-inspiring than the lives of men who defy all odds and oppressors on a daily basis. Despite common belief, these individuals aren’t a once-in-a-lifetime rarity hidden in the Earth’s mantle or in the mouths of oysters. If you want to witness them, you don’t have to look too far. These prophetic beings humbly roam the surface of the Earth and are often broadcasted by your local news station. You can even find their faces on the moon, in soil and scriptures, see their names loud on someone’s shirt as a religious symbol. With the unparalleled power of God, illiterate men give speeches and apt scholars turn on electric kettles with matchsticks. Just like God in Persian love poems involving human romance and sexuality – they’re incredibly hard to miss. Regardless of where you stand on the vast naturalistic political spectrum, they’re an ant infestation in your house.

“We, first-time humans, are foolishly inclined to see God’s unknown intentions as unfair and absurd. There are things that simply,” as my theology teacher said, “the measly human brain isn’t equipped to understand.”

The intelligent men at inaugurations and speeches would agree – for they all have spiritually transcended. Their mountain of wealth is tall enough to hoist you directly to the sky’s seventh floor for them to talk to God personally– wine and light refreshments provided. They may even refer to him in lower case, ‘god.’ They’re just friends with him in that way. They also borrow his clothes, toy with his hammer and shake the earth in their temper tantrum whenever they see the hair of a woman who isn’t their slave. All the people left on the surface of the Earth are to pose their inquiry in trenches and poverty through snail mail. If this is unfair to you, refer to the previous paragraph and repent.

My family was never particularly religious. Though my grandma, Dowlat, was. Much like me, she never liked her name. It quite literally translates to “government” or “state”.  “And if this is the government I’m named after. I’d rather not have a name at all,” she’d say.

One day I had just come back from school, eight years old, buzzing with the dread of having freshly started second grade. Dowlat didn’t ever remember how old she was, nor what it meant to be a second grader. She was smart but there wasn’t much she could write – just as the other women who grew up alongside her. She always said this with great joy in her eyes: “می‌تونم برات جوجه بکشم” (Mitoonam barat joojeh bekesham) – “I can draw you a baby chick.”

And she did – though she could never stop at one. There’d be many of them, because they needed friends – all of them in a field, with varying sizes, looking in the same direction. After fifteen minutes of doodling, hungry and impatient, I scurried to the kitchen following the sound of our rice cooker’s chest rumbling. I pressed my hand on the top button to prematurely open it. The rush of steam knocked all hunger out of my stomach as I cried in pain from a burning wrist. Dowlat, in an attempt to soothe me, held her wrist above the steam. “It’s not that bad, it’s not that bad.” She cooed before placing my burn in a bed of cool water. I spent that entire evening changing it by the hour and watching cartoons.

I never thought twice about God, politics, or having to wear the veil until I turned nine years old. The long hair braided at the sides of my chubby cheeks had suddenly become too promiscuous. According to my elementary school’s theology teacher, men and women are equal – “There are just some things men are better at doing.” She said, “Men are stronger, for example.” 

Though apparently they lack the strength to focus their wandering eyes, their arms are too frail to hold their faith and fidelity in the presence of a woman. I’ll show them some grace: Iran doesn’t have the technology to allow men to train their eye muscles like in other countries. So, covering up will do, for the time being – building a house of straw is better than no house at all. To this day, the idea of being able to wear a skirt outdoors is foreign to me.

I handed Dowlat a white board and marker a week before she passed. She had grown frail, her henna stained hair brittle and uncovered. She had lost her religion. That day I was seventeen, and she had never learned how old she was. “برام جوجه بکش” (Baram joojeh bekesh) – “Draw me a baby chick.”

And she did – though this one never found friends to look in the same direction with, and there was no field. It looked disheveled, crooked in its edges like a miniature of the chicken in Diogenes’ hand.

At her funeral, I walked carefully along the haphazardly arranged tombstones beside my grandmother’s grave to not step on the buried could’ve-been-Avicennas wrapped in shroud and veil beneath the weight of soil. I grew up. Dowlat stayed still in time, turning the bed of cool water in her chest a place for flowers to sprout. The couch she laid on for weeks on end as her will to walk, cook, and be as she was diminished permeated with the weak scent of her perfume whenever you sat on it. The baby chick cemented itself in blue marker on the white board and bore into me as a mirror. I wonder if any of the women and girls beneath the soil learned to harness the miracles the intelligent men at inaugurations can. Whether or not Dowlat loves her name now or knows how old she was – something I’ve yet to learn. It, much like my beloved Iran, is dear and hideous.

Years later, I moved to Canada and, despite my mother’s incessance, never bought myself a rice cooker.